Talk:Spam

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Talk:Spam - Other languages

Diary Spam

I have added a number of diaries that looks like they are spamming. I might not be right in all cases, but have a look to see if you agree. Nichlas 14:30, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Chill pills...

Where do I get those? ;-)

Seriously, the current idea about spamming there is to ignore? That's going to attract more spammers!?

--amai 19:22, 2 August 2010 (BST)

I see that's a reference to something TomH put on this page [1] which was since removed. I think maybe Firefishy (another of the System Administrators) does go through this list occasionally these days. ..but I'm not sure.
I know TomH is still frustrated by people constantly reporting spam, and seems to think the spam gets resolved by their processes OK. The admins have some filtering and review processes, but I don't know the details of how that works.
Also TomH is working on a way for people to report spam more directly on the website. He wants to see it done in a particular way. See the solution he's describing on this github issue: https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/issues/841
-- Harry Wood (talk) 02:25, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
Some newer work has taken place as a GSoC project, and more recent discussions here: https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/90. I will link these from a lightbulb box on the page actually. It's reassuring to know people are working on it -- Harry Wood (talk) 14:17, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

User adding fictional countries' traffic signs

There's a weird case of spam where an user adds traffic signs of a country called "Dozec" in various places in the wiki. Other prominent search results for the term are 3D models of "Dozec Traffic Signs" at the Sketchup repo by a user with the same nick as the one responsible for the edits on our wiki, and a "Dozec road signs" page on Wikimedia Commons that was deleted as a "Blatant hoax created by a sp of an indefinitely blocked (in august) user and crosswiki vandal (Jermboy)".

Please also read the assesment of the problem at Wikimedia Commons by their admins. The user is apparently trying to hide his/her activities by creating additional usernames, and performing unrelated, seemingly innocent (though mostly useless) edits. On our wiki, he/she mostly creates copy-paste "translations" that are obviously machine-translated or even completely untranslated. --Tordanik 15:24, 28 May 2012 (BST)

We have had no edits in OSM in the last 5 months from the current Jermboy27 IPs blocked by Wikipedia. -- Firefishy 17:08, 29 May 2012 (BST)

So it's edits the wiki we have to worry about, but luckily we don't have to worry about IP address edits to the wiki. But before he was blocked he made various edits to Road signs in Belgium page which have not been reverted. See anything wrong with those? - Harry Wood 18:27, 29 May 2012 (BST)

Found the user: http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/jermboy27 -- Firefishy 19:47, 29 May 2012 (BST)
I did not revert edits to Road signs in Belgium because they look legit. The images he links to are ones that are uploaded by a long time wiki user (Vascer) and the descriptions match. I do not feel like reverting those edits without consulting the belgium comunity. Gnonthgol 20:09, 29 May 2012 (BST)

Controversial diary spam

    • http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/SkladUfa three edits, the only diary record and a user description both contain advertisement
      • "SkladUfa" looks like a company account that is used to map the buildings belonging to the company. The edits seem reasonable. Imo legit, no spam. --Tordanik 09:45, 3 July 2012 (BST)
      • Tordanik, I agree. That was my suggestion to block: the problem was they promote their services in the diary. Now, after edit, it looks fine: just a record about some industrial object was mapped. --Diomas 14:51, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Move this to Talk:Spam? -- Harry Wood 17:06, 3 July 2012 (BST)
Moved. --Tordanik 13:16, 30 July 2012 (BST)

More diary spam

Can someone help remove a spam comment from one of my diary entries at http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Amaroussi/diary/23591? The user name itself is spam as well. --Amaroussi (talk) 09:14, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Please just add it to the "OSM diary/comment pages with spam content" section on Spam. Not on this talk page (which is for discussing the page "Spam"). --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 11:11, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Looks like spam but may be just article stubs

http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/MIMAHE4/diary. I don't speak Spanish. Xxzme (talk) 03:37, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't look like spam, but it sure is suspicious. He is posting a diary entry every time he makes a changeset, which adds a node with a name equals to the code in the title of the diary entry. Ideally the Costa Rica community should be contacted about this. --Jgpacker (talk) 11:31, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

SEO Spam

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Spam is the practise of adding map features which do not represent on the ground features but are instead intended to increase a business' web searchability.

Typical features of SEO Spam

  • Often the Changeset Description and Description tag contain marketing hype. Marketing hype is not objectively verifiable and breaks one of OSM's key criteria of verifiability. Unverifiable claims should be deleted
  • There is no feature at that location. Often the business is operating from home and not wishing to disclose its location, existing features such as roads or suburbs are modified, nodes are placed in parkland, nodes are ambiguously placed eg on the road or nodes placed at post offices when the address is a post office box
  • No primary key such as office or shop, the data was never intended to appear on a map
  • The User or business may have a history of such changesets
  • no reply to changeset comments

Good Practice for SEOs

There can be a win win for SEOs and OSM, changesets which represent ground truth improve the map and are unlikely to be reverted

  • the street name and number tags should be entered and match the 'contact us' on the business website and nodes should be placed centrally and unambiguously on the matching feature. If the business does not want to specify their location to that degree we can be justifiably suspicious
  • changeset comments describe the changeset, not the business
  • no advertising, everything objectively verifiable
  • if a SEO uses the one User account for all edits, self identifying as a SEO, they can build a reputation for compliant changesets, SEOs with a good reputation are unlikely to have changesets reverted

Tonyf1 (talk) 06:43, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Tonyfi, is there any question or something you want to discuss? This looks like a manual entry?! --aseerel4c26 (talk) 21:15, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

I put the text up as a basis for discussion. If there are no objections I'll move it to the main Spam page. Tonyf1 (talk) 21:51, 18 March 2018 (UTC)


What is Spam and who decides this?

I couldn't find a definition what is considered spam for the context of the OSM wiki. Who decides ultimately if something can remain or not? --Dieterdreist (talk) 16:30, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Spam usually is blatantly offtopic and clearly an unwanted ad. See https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&offset=&limit=500&type=delete&user=&page=&tagfilter= for recent examples of what was deleted (usually spam dominates). Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 13:41, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
This is effectively decided by the administrators (either they delete it or they do not). --Tigerfell This user is member of the wiki team of OSM (Let's talk) 17:59, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
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